Over the Sliprails | Page 5

landlord, "I can do that, but some of you will have to
sleep double and some of you'll have to take it out of the sofas, and one
or two 'll have to make a shakedown on the floor. There's plenty of
bags in the stable, and you've got rugs and coats with you. Fix it up
amongst yourselves."
"But look here!" interrupted the Pilgrim, desperately, "we can't afford
to wait! We're only `battlers', me and my mate, pickin' up crumbs by
the wayside. We've got to catch the ----"
"Hush!" said the publican, savagely. "You fool, didn't I tell you my
missus was bad? I won't have any noise."
"But look here," protested the Pilgrim, "we must catch the train at Dead
Camel ----"
"You'll catch my boot presently," said the publican, with a savage oath,
"and go further than Dead Camel. I won't have my missus disturbed for
you or any other man! Just you shut up or get out, and take your
blooming mate with you."
We lost patience with the Pilgrim and sternly took him aside.
"Now, for God's sake, hold your jaw," we said. "Haven't you got any
consideration at all? Can't you see the man's wife is ill -- dying perhaps
-- and he nearly worried off his head?"
The Pilgrim and his mate were scraggy little bipeds of the city push
variety, so they were suppressed.
"Well," yawned the joker, "I'm not going to roost on a stump all night.
I'm going to turn in."
"It'll be eighteenpence each," hinted the landlord. "You can settle now
if you like to save time."
We took the hint, and had another drink. I don't know how we "fixed it
up amongst ourselves," but we got settled down somehow. There was a
lot of mysterious whispering and scuffling round by the light of a
couple of dirty greasy bits of candle. Fortunately we dared not speak

loud enough to have a row, though most of us were by this time in the
humour to pick a quarrel with a long-lost brother.
The Joker got the best bed, as good-humoured, good-natured chaps
generally do, without seeming to try for it. The growler of the party got
the floor and chaff bags, as selfish men mostly do -- without seeming to
try for it either. I took it out of one of the "sofas", or rather that sofa
took it out of me. It was short and narrow and down by the head, with a
leaning to one corner on the outside, and had more nails and bits of
gin-case than original sofa in it.
I had been asleep for three seconds, it seemed, when somebody shook
me by the shoulder and said:
"Take yer seats."
When I got out, the driver was on the box, and the others were getting
rum and milk inside themselves (and in bottles) before taking their
seats.
It was colder and darker than before, and the South Pole seemed nearer,
and pretty soon, but for the rum, we should have been in a worse fix
than before.
There was a spell of grumbling. Presently someone said:
"I don't believe them horses was lost at all. I was round behind the
stable before I went to bed, and seen horses there; and if they wasn't
them same horses there, I'll eat 'em raw!"
"Would yer?" said the driver, in a disinterested tone.
"I would," said the passenger. Then, with a sudden ferocity, "and you
too!"
The driver said nothing. It was an abstract question which didn't
interest him.
We saw that we were on delicate ground, and changed the subject for a
while. Then someone else said:
"I wonder where his missus was? I didn't see any signs of her about, or
any other woman about the place, and we was pretty well all over it."
"Must have kept her in the stable," suggested the Joker.
"No, she wasn't, for Scotty and that chap on the roof was there after
bags."
"She might have been in the loft," reflected the Joker.
"There was no loft," put in a voice from the top of the coach.
"I say, Mister -- Mister man," said the Joker suddenly to the driver,

"Was his missus sick at all?"
"I dunno," replied the driver. "She might have been. He said so,
anyway. I ain't got no call to call a man a liar."
"See here," said the cannibalistic individual to the driver, in the tone of
a man who has made up his mind for a row, "has that shanty-keeper got
a wife at all?"
"I believe he has."
"And is she living with him?"
"No, she ain't -- if yer wanter know."
"Then where is she?"
"I dunno. How am I to know? She left him three or four